Look Inwards

“We all know a picture is equivalent to 1000 words, but most of us are poor translators”

Most of us 20-somethings live in a society where every mildly interesting moment we experience is uploaded to the cloud and our thoughts are only worth expressing if we can do so in under 140 characters. But aren’t we supposed to be the most expressive and philosophical generation yet? Is this really the extent of our complexity? It’s not a very big surprise that most of us don’t have everything figured out in our twenties. So why aren’t we taking the time to reflect on our lives instead of instagram-ing a picture of our latest dinner with ridiculous captions like #foodporn?

The simple answer is because it’s easy. It’s pretty effortless to snapchat a picture of your scrumptous dessert or to take a group “selfie” with friends in order to subconsciously validate your current lifestyle. The unfortunate part about this trend is that it trivializes any sort of deeper reflection which is exactly what is needed to maintain a sense of direction at this crucial stage in life. I’ve seen far too many young people simply become engrossed in their day to day routine/activities and then wake up a month or a year later wondering where those elusive “best days of their lives” have gone. But, of course, we can always check our twitter feed to find out what we were up to back then! Oh, right. It’s probably just a bunch of selfies, pictures of food and pseudo artistic shots of sunsets.

All sarcasm aside, it is vital that we all take some time to reflect on where our lives are heading and if we are truly content with it even if such a process might not seem that glamorous at first. It is only by taking the effort to record our thoughts in some substantial way (ie. more than 140 characters) that we can gain insight into who we are and how we think. Not only that but true self-reflection provides you with a means of tracking your growth as a person along with being able to assess how you’ve changed for better or worst. But, most importantly of all, self-reflection enables one to gently apply the brakes on our fast-paced journey through life – it gives us a chance to appreciate those beautiful intricacies that too often pass us by in a blur.

Unlike most my friends, I’ve been blogging ever since high school which was about six years ago now. Up until recently, very few people read what I wrote but honestly, it makes no difference to me. Unlike most users of Instagram, Twitter and Facebook my primary motivation for blogging stems not from a desire to entertain or share my thoughts with others but for myself. In this sense, the purpose my blog serves is more like that of a journal. I want to be able to take a snapshot of my emotions, my thought process and what was important to me at a certain point in time. The best part is I know that whatever I write is completely real and genuine. I’m not trying to make my life seem more interesting than it currently is and I’m not attempting to seek approval from people whom I barely know (something most social media users are definitely guilty of). This sense of clarity is just one of the many benefits that naturally arise when the main audience of your writing is YOU.

Funnily enough, I recently went back and read some of my old posts from high school and was rather surprised by how different I sounded. My priorities were different (“OMG, that girl I had a crush on totally looked at me today”), the way I viewed the world was pretty naïve and my writing style seemed much more primitive. Nonetheless, it was very enlightening to actually see the evolution of my personality over the years in such detail – something which would have otherwise been impossible if it wasn’t for my introspective writing. Also, one should not always focus on what has changed but consider what has remained constant as well. There were several facets of my personality that have been static throughout the years and, consequently, I was able to gain insight into who and what truly mattered to me.

Often, it’s difficult to see progress or even change in our day to day lives. Today is not so different from yesterday and we expect tomorrow to be similar as well. But yet, we are slowly changing. Our journey through life is not adequately measured on a scale as small as days but rather over far longer horizons. It is as if we are climbing a very tall mountain by means of a very gentle slope. If you pause for a moment and look around everything seems relatively flat. It is only when one takes time to reflect and “zoom out” that they see the progress they have made, how far they have come and where they are heading. This ability to take a step backwards and examine the bigger picture in our lives is the real power of self-reflection.